So I was playing 1v1 versus a friend (both of us are noobs). I played America while he was PE. He played quite crap early game and within 20 minutes I controlled most sectors, except 2 or 3 and his hq. After this, he built flak and hmg emplacements near his base, along with some more defensive structures sheltering infantry. At this point, I really didn't know what to do. My usual "strategy" is a tank assault, but the flak emplacements were killing tanks far too easily. Infantry was getting suppressed. So I built 2 rocket jeeps (took airborne) and just sat bombarding his base, along with occasional fragmentation bombs. Took me almost another hour before I finally managed to beat him

Now my question is, what was I supposed to do in a situation like that? Tanks and infantry were both getting pummeled, and his base was out of mortar range was indirect bombardment was slow.

if all he had was in base and he was relying only on what you mentioned i think you might try using smoke barrage on them (more than 1 mortar would be better) and then then try to rush with a crocodile sherman (the one with flamethrower) paired with supporting infantry to steal the emplacements decrewed by flames. Otherwise airborne doctrine has in tech tree an unlock that gives your AB 101st squads, command squad and AB scouts an off-map mortar barrage that decrews flaks 100% of times (at least accorting to what i experienced) and that can clear the way for you.

In addition you can paradrop howitzers (CP unlock required) and use them to bomb, or, if your friend is fine with basebombing, you might just try to use an air patrol on his base

sgtToni95 wrote:if all he had was in base and he was relying only on what you mentioned i think you might try using smoke barrage on them (more than 1 mortar would be better) and then then try to rush with a crocodile sherman (the one with flamethrower) paired with supporting infantry to steal the emplacements decrewed by flames. Otherwise airborne doctrine has in tech tree an unlock that gives your AB 101st squads, command squad and AB scouts an off-map mortar barrage that decrews flaks 100% of times (at least accorting to what i experienced) and that can clear the way for you.

In addition you can paradrop howitzers (CP unlock required) and use them to bomb, or, if your friend is fine with basebombing, you might just try to use an air patrol on his base

sgtToni95 wrote:if all he had was in base and he was relying only on what you mentioned i think you might try using smoke barrage on them (more than 1 mortar would be better) and then then try to rush with a crocodile sherman (the one with flamethrower) paired with supporting infantry to steal the emplacements decrewed by flames. Otherwise airborne doctrine has in tech tree an unlock that gives your AB 101st squads, command squad and AB scouts an off-map mortar barrage that decrews flaks 100% of times (at least accorting to what i experienced) and that can clear the way for you.

In addition you can paradrop howitzers (CP unlock required) and use them to bomb, or, if your friend is fine with basebombing, you might just try to use an air patrol on his base

A smoke barrage on base or on my onrushing tabks for cover?The problem I faced with mortar barrages was that my units couldn't get within range without the emplacements hitting them, and I didn't know how to move my line ahead without getting my engineers killed. Only my rocket launcher jeeps were able to get in barrages from afar.

About the howitzers, I haven't seen that card yet haha. If there is such a card in airborne, then yeah that should do the trick. Thanks I did use air bombs, but they usually weren't able to destroy emplacements, just decrewed them. He then just recrewed and repaired them.

kwok wrote:Bunker busting is my specialty. Do you have a replay?

Unfortunately I didn't click save replay after the game. Any way I could retrieve it now?

If you haven't played any other game since then, your temp file (last played game) should be it. You can find it in your playback folder (C:\Documents\my games\Company of Heroes Relaunch\playback) named "temp.rec"

Smoke works just like undirectonal cover. so if there is smoke between you and your enemy it doesn't affect neither of them. If you have more troops than your enemy you smoke the enemy. If they have more troops than you, you smoke yourself. Each unit has different stats vs targets in smoke, The most usual is small arms fire which gives them a 0.25 modifier in accuaracy. (this is not much) but most importantly gives you a 0.00 modifier in suppersion which makes almost unsuppressable. Do note smoke does not affect most HE guns. If he has a flak 37 emplacement using HE dont bother smoking it as it will do nothing. If it uses ap ammo for his flak and you smoke it. It will still have a 25% chance per shot to insta kill your crocodile. Scatter gets reduced the less range and will put that chance of you dying up by alot. The only infantry you can use with smoke against empalcements are all the airborne troops as they have satchel charges.

I dont think smoke stacks with other defensive stuff like medium or heavy cover but I think the piroity is

Heavy>Smoke>Medium cover as that makes most sense to me. So in conclusion. Smoke is just a little better than medium cover and sometimes useless. High explosive ignores all cover. And satchel charges is all you need. Airborne rangers get fire up which makes you "Immune to suppresion" and you can suicide it in to a emplacement and throw a satchel.

Edit: You may smoke both yourself and the enemy if you dont want anyone to die. But do remeber in assault you're often moving either out or into the smoke so do account yours and your enemy's movement. And since emplacements dont move they are ideal targets for somke. But anti tank empalcements dont get affected by much, and anti tank emplacements are often better at killing infantry than anti infantry emplacements. Smoke will make your odds better but that is all. BK loves uncertanty and everything can happen. I have seen a jeep kill a king tiger and a stolen sherman kill a super pershing.

There was this thing before where tanks got so much accuaracy that they still hit tanks behinde smoke 85% of the time. Take that info as you like.

@Redgaarden, thanks. So my main bet against AT emplacements should be fire up and satchels? Any other options?

You will lose about 4 of your men to the anti tank emplacement alone, or the entire squad if unlucky or your people aren't spread out. Dont bother smoking it atm since it has no modifier agaisnt people through smoke. The best option would be for your teammates to handle it as sprinting at it with satchel is the best option as airborne doc. Nades will only decrew it but they wont do it at a safe range and will still lose 4-6 "soldiers" You pretty much always want high numbers that are spread out which is hard oh many maps. And you'll never deal with it cost effiecent, but since there are unlimited resources it shouldn't be that many problems unless you play on vp's. So it depends on the format if it's 1v1,2v2 or 3v3-4v4. And what you're against. You're obviously matcehd against Defence doctrine or luftwaffe, in this case you can spare some munitions to kill the crew with off-map mortar bombardment. If you're in a team game facing terror doctrine or tankhunter and your teammates can't deal with it and all is palced on your hands. Then I would reccomend sacraficing the worst squad you have as cannon fodder and use the 2nd worst to throw the satchel charge. If there are machine gun bunkers make sure your units are immune to suppresion one way or another. You can NOT use munitions on other stuff other than airplanes to kill high priority targets like jagdpanthers, Panthers, Panthers, Panthers, and maybe King Tigers. There are cases where you're allowed to get guns and throw nades but those situations are seldom, Just use munitions when you have over 400 munitions. YES 400 is your new 0.

And dont forget to use supply drops everytime you can. This doctrien can be dumbed down to

Hi sphener, I hope you're still on here. I did eventually watch the replay and have a few comments. Before I start though, I definitely recommend you play bigger maps. Angoville has some broken aspects to it, for example everytime you try to capture the +16munition you get bogged by the base defense. Top side has a huge advantage on this map that is often used/abused by strong players subconsciously. No one will admit it though.

Work on you angle of attack, start recognizing and analyzing weaknesses in defenses.

Angles of Attack:Your first large error didn't have to do with emplacements but rather looking at how you attack in general. Noticing how line of sight affects a fight will be huge to learning how to make strong attacks. Imagine the precautions you take when you build defenses in line of sight, you always make sure that you're putting your MG in a spot with open vision. The same applies for an attack.

At 15:27 you come around a hedge row with the majority of your units with no vision on the target (yellow marked line). Meanwhile the enemy has his full force firing down on your units one by one as they come along the hedgerow. What happens after this attack is not pretty... So lets pull a few seconds back BEFORE you start your attack and assess what you could've done in the moment.

A few things here... you were only a few seconds behind from getting your Sherman at this point which would've made short work of this fight. Just waiting for that would save you a lot of effort/micro/lives. BUT, let's pretend you were NOT about to get a sherman and think about how you could've attack. A few other facts before the attack identified in your last engagement a few seconds before with your singular airborne unit chasing the car:-The enemy infantry was equipped with MP44s, this outclasses any of your current units at short range.-The enemy infantry was equipped with G43s, this outclasses any of your current units at long range except your MG.-The only medium and potentially long range anti-infantry unit the enemy had was the 20mm car that can be penetrated by either your rocket launchers on your airborne that require short/medium range, the weakened greyhound you have which will not survive a toe-to-toe, or the 37mm which is a bit far away.Conclusion, you don't want this fight... You want this fight to happen on your terms and your grounds. Not all attacks have to be forward movement, you can do a "pulling attack" or in fencing terms we say "2nd intention" because your first intention is not to kill right away but to hit him with a two-staged move.

What I've drawn out is a possible repositioning of units to "pull" his units forward into a killzone. So a few things I'm assuming that you WANTED which is why you didn't reposition your units and went for the forward direct assault:-I'm guessing you wanted speed to prevent an assault on your entirely open left side-I'm guessing you didn't want to move your AT gun from protecting your right side from a potential car assault-I'm guessing you didn't want to lose your greyhound to a possible RNG trade-I'm guessing you want the cut off point to prevent him from getting more munitionsHopefully my drawn plan meets the above objectives.The first part of the plan is to maneuver infantry to the lower left area of the map and act defensively. This way you will first only engage the enemy at long-medium range first and not immediately at short range to get destroyed by MP44s as well as give your MG a strong fighting chance to trade with the G43s at long range. (You had 2 mgs on that side, one from an emplacement you built that isn't shown on the map, so having both on the right is not optimizing your power over the map). Other movements include moving your AT gun closer to the center of the map and the greyhound up to cover the zone your AT gun will sit. If positioned just right, your AT gun will be able to float attack vehicles to the left through the black area I've highlighted or cover the green area I highlighted. This is also nice because in any case you need to move your AT further to the left or further to the right because of a larger scale vehicle attack, your gun is closer to the action and will arrive earlier.The third part is all personality: do you want to bait him into the black killzone? Would he take the bait? Will he walk into the killzone himself?I'm inclined to say answer to these questions are: No, Yes, Yes. Your opponent has shown in previous engagements that he will chase your units down the end of the map. He hasn't had a reason yet to NOT do that again. And even if he doesn't, he is in a losing position and will want to come forward anyways. You have a double high fuel lead on him and 3x munition income. You don't have to bait him in because he will eventually HAVE to come. And if he doesn't he just gives you more time to build stronger units that he cannot compete with because you have so much map control. Like I said, in a few moments you will have a sherman anyways and can just force your way into the cut off point. But even if you wanted to feint attack to force the fight earlier... you can do this with a lot more safety with your units repositioned.

So what we learned from that engagement was that vision and range matters. How will we apply it to the fortress you had to deal with?

The first encounter you've had against the 88 was at this moment (ignore markings, i'll explain later):

I assume the fortress you had trouble eliminating was the screenshot above. There are 2 ways to ruin a fortress: the easy way and the hard way.1. Easy way: bomb it out. I noticed that at the time you discovered the 88 emplacement you had 3 CP free. Did you know at 4 CP you can get drop in howitzers that have 35mm bombardments with a much lower cooldown than the airforce bombing run? This would have ended the game much earlier. I think this is the way you SHOULD do it.

2.But for those of you who think that's basebombing, shouldn't be allowed, or want to do it the sexy and hard way... read on! Time to talk about the blue and yellow highlighted areas in the picture. What talked about from my previous assessment of the engagement was that line of sight is a critical piece of both attack and defense. In the situation you were facing, the blue area you are safe from the 88 while the yellow is danger. Instead of sending waves of tanks and infantry to the yellow death zone, coming at an angle and using the buildings to close distance on the 88 will allow you to put more units into their effective range to engage the defenses. Stay in the blue zone and maybe sneak some crocodiles in to burn them out!

Other non-related notes to help improve your success in bk:-USE SPOTTERS, this is probably your biggest weakness. Fortunately your opponent didn't either and so you both ran at each other blind sometimes.-At around 10 minutes you chose airborne doc while buying rangers. I'd suggest not making rangers simply because the unit does not scale with the doctrine. Not saying rangers are bad or that airborne are even better, BUT when you go airborne doctrine and you start spending CP or other upgrades, they will apply to your airborne only and not your rangers. Meanwhile, the capabilities of the rangers do not differ from your airborne units. Essentially, it is a waste to make rangers AND teching airborne units (CP bought vet, cheaper weapon upgrades from wsc, airborne hq squad bonuses, airborne fire up from the fhq, etc.).-There are times where you had many idle units in a non-optimal position. For example, at 12:50 you had a collection of units in the bottom right that were not defending any important position, reconing, or even standing in a spot as reserve where they can effectively get to an unsecured location quickly to respond to a fight. Positioning and making sure your units are in active positions (not moving! just in strong locations where they serve a purpose) will help strengthen effectiveness of all your units together. Think like chess, pieces stand still most the time but they are in active positions which makes them powerful.

kwok wrote:Hi sphener, I hope you're still on here. I did eventually watch the replay and have a few comments. Before I start though, I definitely recommend you play bigger maps. Angoville has some broken aspects to it, for example everytime you try to capture the +16munition you get bogged by the base defense. Top side has a huge advantage on this map that is often used/abused by strong players subconsciously. No one will admit it though.

*snip*

That's an awesome review of the replay that gets to the heart of the issue without fluffing things up.

Depends what you mean from the axis position and at what point in time? I can do a review from the flip side but it'd be tough because I've already seen the game from the allied POV. It'd be like giving tips as if there was no fog of war, which is only slightly helpful. But, let me review again maybe I'll find some generic comments that would help improve the axis play.